


Bourbon and Skin II

by thebasement_archivist



Category: The X-Files
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-06-26
Updated: 2002-06-26
Packaged: 2018-11-20 19:57:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11342202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebasement_archivist/pseuds/thebasement_archivist
Summary: Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived atThe Basement, which moved to the AO3 to ensure the stories are always available and so that authors may have complete control of their own works. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address onThe Basement's collection profile.





	Bourbon and Skin II

**Author's Note:**

> Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Basement](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Basement), which moved to the AO3 to ensure the stories are always available and so that authors may have complete control of their own works. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [The Basement's collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thebasement/profile).

Bourbon and Skin II

## Bourbon and Skin II

#### by Ganymede

Bourbon and Skin II  
by Ganymede  
Fandom: X-Files  
Pairing: SLASH Skinner/Krycek 

Rating: NC-17 for gratuitous smut, drinking before happy hour and excessive abuse of pottery. 

Thanks to: DS, who inspired me with the word 'anathematize'. Josan, for kicking my muse in the ass. Polyanna, for coming up with a truly rock-n-roll idea like the dictionary wheel. 

Feedback: RachelSara_B. All flames will be fed to the dogs and later regurgitated on the rug. 

* * *

Post-orgasmic haze, sticky and spent, sprawled loose-limbed across my bed. Comforter reduced to a medusan tangle around our feet, air redolent of lubricant and sweat and body fluids staining the sheets. 

He is so beautiful. 

Even scarred, incomplete, he is the most beautiful man I have ever seen. 

And he knows it. 

He is a dark, dangerous force of nature that obeys no laws, follows no rules, has no master. He deigns to grace me with his presence in my bed, and in my life. 

It is a dance we do, he and I, as complicated as any quadrille or contra. During the day, I am a retired Assistant Director of the FBI, busy doing consulting for a handful of Washington think tanks and lobbying groups. 

At night, the darkness named Krycek takes over my life. 

The English language is not made of elastic. Words can only be stretched so far before they break. 

It would be too much of a stretch to call what we have a 'relationship', although it has gone on for many months now. 

A far better word would be 'enchantment'. 

He has enchanted me. 

Some days, I think I have conjured him - some half-demon mystical spirit turned flesh and blood. Other days I know better. He wasn't created for me. I was created for his amusement, to satisfy some whim. 

And that's good enough for me. 

* * *

"You look like sh*t, Krycek." 

Another one of those dangerous, feline smiles, the kind that either led to seduction or murder. "I still get your dick hard." 

What could I say? He was right, as usual. Just the smell of him, leather and far away cigarette smoke and cordite, and my body responded. 

He did look like sh*t, though. Normally, he radiated menace. When I walked in the door and found him sprawled on my couch, inhaling leftovers he raided from my fridge, eyes red rimmed and dark circled, he radiated tired menace. 

Sitting down on the ottoman next to the couch, I knew better than to get too close. It was feeding time at the tiger cage, and I didn't want my fingers mistaken for the second course. 

He looked like he hadn't showered in days, and I didn't want to wager a week's salary on when the last time he ate or slept was. 

Giving voice to the questions would be an exercise in futility. I would ask, and he would obfuscate, ignore me, lie, or just look at me from under those lush lashes, a course of action that inevitably ended up with one of us dragging the other off towards the nearest bed. If we got that far. 

He finished devouring the bowl of cold beef stew, including the pattern on the bowl, and he slumped back against the couch's tan leather, closing his eyes. He looked ... younger. Vulnerable. Almost human. This wasn't Krycek, the portable chaos generator, and terror of three continents. This was just Alex, starving, exhausted and in need of a shower. 

My Alex. 

How long had we been doing this now? How long had he been paying me nocturnal visits, showing up in my office, in my hotel room, in my bed? 

It wasn't marked in my day planner, but it was engraved in my head. It was spring, April to be exact. The cherry blossoms were in bloom, perfuming the air when he dragged me out of a local bar in the middle of the afternoon, tossed me on my back and made the top of my head explode. 

There had been so many times since then, evenings I walked in after work and found he had invaded my home in my absence, nights I woke up to his demanding mouth and greedy cock. Each one a treasured memory, wrapped in tissue paper, carefully stored to be unwrapped and enjoyed at leisure. 

While my brain reminisced, my body was busy, collecting the now-empty bowl, retrieving more beef stew from the fridge, punching the buttons on the microwave. Glasses were where they always lived, arranged neatly on the top shelf of the cabinet. Milk on the door of the fridge. Mind a million miles away. 

"What the f*ck do you think you're doing, Skinner?" Tiredness sapping the venom from his voice, lip curled in disgust. "I didn't come here to be _nurtured_." From his mouth, the word was an epithet. 

I didn't bother to turn around. "What did you come here for, Krycek?" 

"Same reason I always come D to f*ck you into the mattress." Dangerous purr, the one that turns my knees to jelly, the voice that has the power to keep me distracted for hours at work after a forty five second phone call. 

"Not in that condition, you're not." Carefully transferring the beef stew to a Tupperware container, returning the milk to its designated spot. "You come near my bed smelling like that, and I'll have to burn the sheets after you leave." Finally finished, I looked up at him, still sprawled across the couch, gaze scorching my skin. "You know where the shower is. Use it." 

"You'd better be ready for me when I get back." Not a request - a command that he knew would be obeyed. Lithe, catlike conservation of motion, he was on his feet and on the way down the hall. 

Most people have marriages, long term relationships with people similar to themselves, people with normal jobs, normal lives. 

I feel sorry for them. 

They don't know what they're missing. 

* * *

Sleepy and sated, curled up next to me on the bed, too lazy to clean up right now. That's what mornings are for. 

Krycek wasn't a cuddler. Every once in a while, if I catch him in the right mood, he'll let me pull him into my arms, run my fingers through his hair, feel his heartbeat through my skin. Tonight seemed to be the right mood. 

Breathing his scent, enjoying the sensation of his dead weight across my chest, letting my fingertips trace the paths of scar tissue that pockmark his skin. Savoring this. Savoring him. 

"You're purring. Quit it." Voice coming from near my left shoulder. 

Laughter bubbled to the surface. "Forgive my presumptuousness. I will cease and desist immediately." 

"You'd better. Next thing I know, you'll be telling me I make you happy." Not looking at me. I couldn't tell, but I'd bet money his eyes weren't even open. 

"And that would be so dreadful." 

He propped himself up on his right elbow and looked at me, green eyes looking straight through me. All traces of fatigue gone. "I could kill you right now. I've killed you before." 

I knew. He could. He had. But right there, right then, it didn't mean anything. The only thing that mattered right there was the reality of his skin on mine. 

"Alex, why do you come here?" 

Those green eyes never wavered, but the dangerous smile was back. "'Cuz you're an easy lay, Skinner." 

That wasn't the truth. I knew it. He knew it. 

The truth lay in a dangerous three word combination that neither he or I would ever utter. 

Alex Krycek, force of nature more destructive than a hurricane, obeyer of no law save his own, needs me. 

He needs my predictability. He needs me to be exactly what I appear to be, unwavering, unchanging. He needs me to be here, whenever, however, whatever he does. 

And those unspoken words are as close to a declaration of love as we will ever get. 

**THE END**

* * *

If you enjoyed this story, please send feedback to Ganymede 


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